Publications

Preface

Despite its dramatic surroundings, buried in the Doñana National Park with its western border described by a stair-way-accessed Atlantic ocean edged with steep sandstone cliffs and the mini-ravines of occasional rainstorms, the Parador de Mazagón, cosseted in an organic carapace of sweetly-odourous pinon pines, offered a remarkable haven of peace, harmony and tranquillity. Like almost any other nook and cranny of the Iberian peninsula, this refuge, another Andalusian oasis, gave to the weary traveller, whether from San Diego, Tel-Aviv, Oxford, Porto Alegre, Ontario, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Zaragossa, Tennessee, Madrid, New Hampshire, Salamanca, France, Scotland, Hanover or Scandinavia, a solace to nourish the depleted soma and a history to sooth the agitated psyche. Certainly, the culinary digressions, ready-and-waiting on arrival, lacked no power of incentive to a gathering of neuroscientists long-spoiled by 'those other' enticing kitchen arts of the Parador de Mojacar, but rather enhanced further the additive love affair to gustatory experiences par excellence. On the historical scene it may appear to the undiscerning that the Province of Huelva be overshadowed by its famous neighbour Cadiz, the Gades of Quintus Sertorius, Gnaes Pompeius Magnus and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. Nevertheless, the immediate environs of Mazagon narrate at least two compelling histories that, at different levels, physical or cognitive, bear unique significance. El Monasterio de Santa Maria de la Rabida, built on the site of an ancient Phoenician (Punic) fortress situated at the confluence of the Rio Tinto and Rio Odiel and about two leagues from the village of Palos de la Frontera, sheltered, succoured and eventually financed the 'approaching-middle-age' Cristobal Colon, an adventurous Italian with a nose and sleight-of-hand for charming Queens and knaves, soldiers and seamen, captains and Kings. He was placed under the beneficial auspices of Fray Juan Perez, the Pryor, and Fray Antonio de Marchena, the Cosmograph. The good Fathers organised too the involvement of the Shipwright-Navigators, Martin Alonso Pinzon and Vicente Yanez Pinzon, with the eventual consequence, seven years after Colon's arrival, of the departure from the Muelle de las Carabeles' on the Rio Tinto estuary, of the caravels, Santa Maria, Nina and Pinza; the rest, as they say, 'is history'. The second story is even more compelling in its special insights for students of brain and behaviour. Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958), Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, 1956, and a succession of 'Silver' donkeys have left us a life best understood through its magnitude of prefrontal functioning to encompass not only in the essence of its poetry and prose but also in its goodness, simplicity and empathy. Against the background of incomparable bravery in seeking discovery and fame as opposed to the gentle excellence of cortical functioning, the environs of Mazagón provided the ingenuous venue for yet another 'Mojacar-type' International Meeting on "Implications of Co-morbidity for Etiology and Treatment of Neuropsychiatric Disorders". The various issues arising from considerations of co-morbidity touched upon the genetic variation underlying co-morbidity, the neuronal substrates of comorbidity in animal models, the occurrence of movement disorders in psychotic and putative psychotic states, the presence of iatrogenic comorbidity, the problems of comorbidity that disrupt learning and memory in causing dysfunctions of cognition, the serious and highly prevalent comorbidity in substance addiction with other psychiatric illness and the implications of comorbidity for the etiology and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. Both the order and content of these different sections were indeed beneficially chosen, unfolding a wealth of neuroscientific finess to bolster the clinical realities and multitude of comorbidities that proliferate and defy efforts of disorder-containment. Co-morbidity was defined, exemplified and described from a plethora of methods and procedures, instruments and techniques, patients and populations (whether non-clinical or laboratory). State-of-the-art gene analyses intermingled with diagnoses of disorders and expressions dysfunctioning brain, deranged psyches and destructively maladaptive symptoms and syndromes. Neuroanatomical pathway-substrate considerations, signal transduction mechanisms, synaptic plasticity, neurotransmitter interactions, cognitive tasks challenging implicit-explicit, declarative-procedural memory, emotional expressions, neuroimaging displays were some of the issues examined from the perspectives of schizophrenia, depressive disorders, substance abuse, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders, Parkinsonism and other related motor disorders and epilepsy in the dreadful glow of their varied and malevolent comorbid expressiveness. New implications of diagnosis and symptom-profiles were aired in the lively discourse that was evident throughout. Remarkably, although this was the first 'non-Mojacar Mojacar Meeting' in Mazagon, both the venue and the genial ambience set the stage for a Meeting that probably surpassed all previous sojourns. Thus, much appreciation ought to be given to the accomplished staff and culinary efforts of the Parador de Mazagon. Not least were environs of the National park and sandy Atlantic, a great source of rest and recuperation for the muddled brains of ever-doubting neuroscientists. Despite the Herculean burdens of venue, travel and logistics, the Organisers and the members of the Cerebro y Mente Fundación succeeded brilliantly in assembling the uniquelyrenowned group of individuals with established reputations for independent thinking and a somewhat frightening penchant for questioning every matter, whether leviathan or microcosmal, between and among human and nonhuman organisations. Indelibly, the hand of sense, sensibility and sensitivity, Isabel Lopez-Palomo's hand, is discerned in all matters pertaining to our welfare and comfort, whether the delicate choice of the gourmet repasts, the manner in which we were coddled by hotel and Cerebro y Mente staff, or those wonderful smiles that one receives on every occasion when one meets her. Our artisan for this particular meeting was the craftsman, Rodriges de Santos, a man of genius at the workings and shapings of metals, alloys and their expressions of figures embodying life or non-life. Rodriges created comorbid images that showed an essence of the profound 'lock and key' aspect underlying all neuronal, and thereby all brain, activity, and eventually functioning, that is the basis of the healthy or diseased state. At this meeting too we were all happy for the attendance of quite a number of accompanying persons, most significantly represented by both genders. Once again the Organisers demonstrated amazing insight by recruiting the services of the utterly charming, inimitable María Calvo Lozano from Madrid. Maria introduced the accompanying persons to both perceptual and conceptual experiences displaying the cultural richness of Moguer, El Rocio, the National park with wild horses, and all the while delighted the guests with the light-hearted fullness of a unique personality and a woman of much sympatico. Thereby was the depleted soma nourished and the agitated psyche soothed to render the harmony of purpose and ambition in each player as the drama of neuropsychiatric comorbidity unfolded.

T. Archer, R.J. Beninger, R.M. Kostrzewa, T. Palomo